It must never exist alone,--never for itself; it exists rightly
only when it is the means of knowledge, or the grace of agency for
life.
Now, I pray you to observe--for though I have said this often before,
I have never yet said it clearly enough--every good piece of art, to
whichever of these ends it may be directed, involves first essentially
the evidence of human skill, and the formation of an actually
beautiful thing by it.
Skill and beauty, always, then; and, beyond these, the formative arts
have always one or other of the two objects which I have just defined
to you--truth, or serviceableness; and without these aims neither
the skill nor their beauty will avail; only by these can either
legitimately reign. All the graphic arts begin in keeping the outline
of shadow that we have loved, and they end in giving to it the aspect
of life; and all the architectural arts begin in the shaping of the
cup and the platter, and they end in a glorified roof.
Therefore, you see, in the graphic arts you have Skill, Beauty, and
Likeness; and in the architectural arts Skill, Beauty, and Use: and
you _must_ have the three in each group, balanced and co-ordinate; and
all the chief errors of art consist in losing or exaggerating one of
these elements.
For instance, almost the whole system and hope of modern life are
founded on the notion that you may substitute mechanism for skill,
photograph for picture, cast-iron for sculpture.
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